Some students object to study abroad requirement

SDSU says international experience is vital for all students

San Diego State University makes much of its efforts to be a “global university.”

A key component of that emphasis is the study abroad program that requires students in 38 of its 85 undergraduate degree program to spend at least some time in another country.

While many students rave about the benefits of the program — testimonials are featured on the university’s web site — the feeling is not universal.

“It’s a burden,” said Debbie Emery-Flores, a 54-year-old student pursuing a degree in gerontology. “I have a dried flower business. It’s a hardship, the time away from my business. If I’m not here, I don’t sell, I don’t ship. Then there’s the cost. To some of the younger students, on student loans, that’s really a problem.

“But the bottom line is I think it’s a violation of my civil rights to require me to cross the border to get my degree from a California university.”

University officials, of course, don’t see it that way.

“We really take seriously the notion of trying to prepare our students for the global economy,” said Al Sweedler, SDSU’s assistant vice president for international programs. “As much as possible, students should have an experience in a foreign country. All students should get an international experience.”

According to its web site, SDSU offers 335 international education programs in 52 countries and ranks second nationally among similar universities in the number of undergraduates studying abroad.

Even in the face such an institutional commitment to foreign study, Emery-Flores and other students intend to circulate a petition to be delivered to the state Legislature in hope of ending the requirement. They stress that their efforts have nothing to do with opposition to studying abroad, only with making it mandatory.

“My older daughter was blessed to be able to study abroad,” said Mary Johnson, also a 54-year-old gerontology major. “And we were blessed to be able to pay for it. But it was totally voluntary.

“It’s not a cost issue for me,” Johnson said. “But it just doesn’t make sense. I have done lots of (foreign) missionary work with my church. We have traveled to a lot of different places. I just don’t understand how they can make you go to another country to earn your degree.”

Officials say the answer is simple.

“If you’re getting a degree, you have to meet all the requirements for a degree,” said Stephen Williams, assistant dean of the university’s College of Health and Human Services, which requires all of its 4,000-plus undergraduates in seven degree programs, including gerontology, to study abroad. “We wouldn’t let a student who didn’t want to meet the writing requirement do something else instead.

“It’s for their majors, for their growth as individuals,” said Williams, whose college grants the gerontology degree. “Most of them will be working with very multicultural populations when they graduate.”

Sweedler and Williams insist the university is very accommodating in trying to make sure the requirement is not a burden for students.

While students can go abroad for as much as a year, there is a nine-day trip to Mexicali and Tecate — which Emery-Flores reluctantly just completed — that costs about $900.